


Binary

by selunchen



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Based on a comic by the same name, F/M, Happy ever afters are like really difficult, Self-Exile
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 03:04:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14728760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selunchen/pseuds/selunchen
Summary: It had been a spur of the moment. Her heart had overruled her brain – or maybe it had been the force. It was too difficult to tell at this point. However, even now she knew, with or without the force, that she could never have left him there, bleeding, at the mercy of the Resistance. Regardless of redemption, of his relations to Leia, he had done terrible things. She knew that they would take him from her. He would be removed from this world - he would be forced to leave her – and she would never get him back, never be with him the way she desired to be with him.So with the First Order gone and no fight remained, she took his hand and led him to his obsidian shuttle. His eyes downcast and his breath shallow, both from the wound inflicted by Hux and from carrying the weight of a lifetime of compunctious actions. It had been a rash decision. A stupid one. A selfish one.- And now she was here. On a backwater planet in the Unknown Regions./ or a bunch of one-shots or glimpses into everything that happened before Finn found them 6 years later.





	1. Numb

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Binary](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/382862) by selunchen. 



> These one-shots are thoughts and ideas I had while writing and illustrating my own comic short, called Binary - and which I needed liberation from so I wrote them down.

**36 AB**

The usual muddy water appeared almost crystal white as the wind rippled and tore at the moon’s reflection on the surface of the lake. It was a magical sight, quite unlike the waters on Ahch-To. There the ocean had been violent and angry, crashing at the rocks in a steady rhythm and showed little mercy to those who dared challenge it. It had had a strange harmony to it. To Rey it had reminded of home, of Jakku, of when the sandstorms waved across the planet’s surface, leaving only the smart and resourceful behind. It had been nostalgic to watch the angry waves on Ahch-To.

There were no waves here. There was no nostalgia. The water was cool, cold even, but peaceful and calm. It was terrifying.

It was terrifying for many reasons.

As a woman who had never learned to swim or had been used to large bodies of water, bathing in a lake had been an unnatural experience. She had fought her brain’s best attempts at convincing her she would drown, that she would be swallowed whole, that she should be afraid.

However, Rey was not easy to scare or frighten. She was bold. She had to be. Surviving was about taking risks and numbing that part of the brain that screamed at you to stop. To numb that part that told her she would disappear into the black depths of the ice-cold lake.

Still, bathing in the lake was mostly terrifying because it was too peaceful. It was a peace that failed to distract from her churning emotions and dizzying thoughts. Since she and Ben had fled, her mind had been preoccupied with scavenging for food, fixing the shuttle and generally staying hidden. Stillness and quietness was the last thing Rey wanted because it left her with room to ponder over what had come to pass the last couple of months.

It had been easy to pretend, too easy to avoid thinking about what she had done – what they had done. Too easy to bury the consequences in the midst of surviving, hiding and fleeing.

It wasn’t as easy now, she thought while watching her chestnut hair circling around her face in the russet water. The stillness sinking into her bones, into her mind.  _What had she done?_

It had been a spur of the moment. Her heart had overruled her brain – or maybe it had been the force. It was too difficult to tell at this point. However, even now she knew, with or without the force, that she never could have left him there, bleeding, at the mercy of the Resistance. Regardless of redemption, of his relations to Leia, he had done terrible things. She knew that they would take him from her. He would be removed from this world - he would be forced to leave her – and she would never get him back, never be with him the way she desired to be with him.

So with the First Order gone and no fight remained, she took his hand and led him to his obsidian shuttle. His eyes downcast and his breath shallow, both from the wound inflicted by Hux and from carrying the weight of a lifetime of compunctious actions. It had been a rash decision. A stupid one. A  _selfish_  one.

\- And now she was here. On a backwater planet in the Unknown Regions. In a too cold lake, trying to wash off the grime and dirt from fixing the cottage they currently occupied. Her feet were slowly becoming numb, but she ignored that, just as she ignored thinking about her past, the family she left behind and her  _future_. Their future?

What was becoming harder to ignore though was the sight of Ben Solo submerging his hair into the water to clean off the sweat and grease.

She had been thrilled when he had agreed to come with her to bathe. He appeared healthier, less morose. A vast improvement from the first weeks of him recovering from his wounds and the subsequent weeks of depression and isolation. With no functioning shower, they would have to make do with the nearby lake until she had fixed the water supply. However, his reaction had discouraged her efforts in mending the cottage. 

Honestly, Rey was not sure what she expected as they fled in a First Order shuttle and had never given it much thought, but it was not  _that_. It had not been him  _removing himself from her_  to let his demons claim him. It had not been her removing herself from her adopted family to just be _left alone_. It had not been this feeling of being  _strangers_  when no one knew her as well as him.  

So, the sight of Ben Solo washing up, willingly having left the cottage at her behest, had made her so immensely happy.

\- And as skilled as she was at numbing her emotions and fears, she struggled to numb the terrifying warmth growing in the pit of her stomach. A humming heat that steadily grew with each step he took rising from the murky waters.

His white pale chest shining in the moonlight and a peaceful look on his face. There was only one thing to do.

She dunked her head forcefully under the water. Hoping that the heat would surrender to the cold. 

_What had she done!?_

 


	2. Abscond I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -
> 
> Ben had been in a sour mood all day.
> 
> \- 
> 
> Or the one where we start healing and grow up, but only by being like...super immature about it. 
> 
> Part 1. Because they are idiots and learning how to talk isn't their strong suit.

**Abscond I**

**37 AB**

 

Things were calm, settled, in the _no longer_ run down cottage. The force agreed. It hummed a silent melody. A soothing wave in what had the potential to be a violent sea. Maybe it was because the shower finally worked, maybe it was because they finally manage to salvage a speeder, or maybe it was because the vegetable patch finally showed signs of growth. The reasons were multiple and intertwined, but whatever the reason, it provided the two newcomers with grounds for a peaceful existence. It was a calm and almost pleasant life.

 

However, it was an existence and not much more than that.

 

A fragile co-habitation with burned and torn edges that threatened to crack at the slightest pressure.

 

It was more than Rey had hoped for.

 

She felt grateful and often pondered as she lay awake in her bed at night (which at the moment was nothing more than a thin mattress on the hard stone floor), staring at the old wooden beams above her, how different their interactions were, now that the threat of annihilation seemed a distant bitter memory.

 

It had surprised her, really.

 

When enemies they had been angry, hungry, and passionate. They had been prone to touch, to declarations and desperate attempts at turning one another. Now, that fire between them seemed reduced to little less than an ember. By removing the conflict, it seemed they had removed their ability to approach each other. What had been fervent exchanges between them before was now replaced with shy stolen glances, quick replies, and hovering hands.

 

Rey thought she might be around 22, older than the first time she met him as Kylo Ren, but that didn’t stop her from finding herself overwhelmed inexperienced and immature, unaware of how to approach their new …" situation."

 

If this was it for them, she couldn’t help but feel…disappointed. Maybe it had been unrealistic expectations, silly fantasies, when she yearned for him previously. She could hardly tell what was supposed to happen. But all her daydreams now fell horribly short. She felt _cheated_.

 

That feeling of being cheated though was always quickly overshadowed by a deep sense of shame. In the shadow of the night, she found herself swallow thickly, feeling once again the currents of her deep-rooted fears claim her once more. Her sense of frustration masked a hidden toxic question at the core of her being. Did she make the right choice?

 

She was scared. Because Rey knew that were she to initiate anything, he would recuperate with no hesitation. The force _reeked_ of it - their yearning.

 

…and of their… _doubt_.

 

\- And Rey had had her doubts.

 

Knowing this made her stomach clench.

 

She had no regrets. Running away hand in hand had been their only choice, she had no choice. He should live. Her heart ached for him – but she found herself unable to cross that bridge she so desired to conquer.

 

The cottage was an old clay building, almost devoid of many of the amenities that were considered standard in the rest of the galaxy. It was not an unknown planet, but it was a planet that hadn’t managed to integrate well into the rest of galactic society. The doors were made of wood and hung on hinges, instead of the usual hydraulic steel. The windows were not made of transparisteel but of glass. It gave them a president look over the landscape, where the wind swept across the meadow in a fluid motion.

 

There was a village 10 km away, but except that, they had discovered, they were well and truly alone in the mountain’s grassy sea.

 

It was in this isolation, this solitude, alone in the room she had claimed, that the overwhelming feeling of shame and concern would strike her. Whenever she seemed determined to pursue a change in their relationship, she would see Finn’s pleading eyes, hear Leia’s concerned words as the resistance departed for the final battle and Poe’s struggling breath as he promised her a celebration like no other when they would return.

 

Except she didn’t return. She had fled. Had run from the people who had given her everything. Told no one. Left them to their own device.

 

Told _no one._

 

Her soft exhale into the night relieved little of the building tension in her chest. She had abandoned them…when they needed her most…with nothing to comfort them. No goodbyes. She could be dead for all they knew.

 

On Jakku shame and concern had been emotions that carried very little meaning in the daily task of not dying – Maybe that’s why now that she had plenty to eat, they slowly ate her up from the inside. Whenever she would feel the pull to Ben, the last vision of Finn, frustrated and concerned at her cryptic message would creep up on her.

 

She could feel Ben’s gentle presence in the force as he slept in the bedroom upstairs.

 

Rey knew why she struggled.

 

Rey knew why she hadn’t thrown herself at the man, whom with one glance over his cup of caf, would send her stomach fluttering.

 

What Rey didn’t know was…why hadn’t _he_ made any advances?

 

The lack of _anything_ from him did nothing to soothe her growing anxiety. Her doubt. While she could clearly feel his overwhelming terribly hidden attraction to her in the force, a dark voice in her head would whisper treacherous words. _He doesn’t think of you that way. He hates you for bringing him here. He resents you._

 

_He wants to leave._

 

Had Rey been older, she might have understood his reservations. How his own personal struggles, his regrets, and despair could transform itself into deep and toxic loathing. How, as with her, feelings of inadequacy and difficulties connecting with other people would force him to withdraw – make him doubt. 

 

If she had been older she would have seen the signs, would have understood the heavy suffocating feeling in the force. She would have known that when he made a snarky comment about her cooking skills – only to realize that where would she have learned to cook? ( when she had lived off instant bread and veg meat for 19 years) - the force was heavy because of fear of pushing her away. She would have known that when he insisted on cooking ever since it was less a statement on her skills and more an amending gesture.   

 

Rey wasn’t older and the incident had left her isolated and pushed out.

 

The certainty she had felt about their mutual attraction was in a limbo and she found herself too scared to search his feelings, to brush against his mind – because…what if the voice was right?

 

While she slept well and her stomach was full, the entire process of fleeing had left her emotionally drained and physically exhausted. It had been 4 months since they had run, 4 months of moving about, weeks of recovery and weeks of trying to settle in an unsettling place. Rey knew how to do that easily. She knew how to survive. What she didn’t know was how to engage with a person in a way she had never engaged with anyone before. She didn’t know how to approach him, _especially_ when he didn’t respond in anger or with spirit, but somberly and quietly.

 

She found herself in unfamiliar territory -

 

\- and Rey was so tired. So so tired.

 

So she had decided to not force anything between them, to let whatever it was run its course and take them to where they needed to be in time. The cottage was calm, their interactions sweet and tender and she would relish the fact, that they could co-exist. They hadn’t killed each other yet. Rather, they seemed more at ease with each other than they had ever been.

 

Which was the first sign that something was about to break that peace.

 

-

 

The first crack happened the moment the local village announced the date and time of their harvest festival.

 

-

 

The second crack struck when the local mechanic’s son smiled at Rey and told her he looked forward to seeing her there.

 

Ben had been in a sour mood all day.

 

-

 

By the time Rey had announced her intentions of attending, the peace was on the verge of truly shattering.

 

Which seemed ironic considered the buzzing excitement she felt at the opportunity for experiencing something so truly positive and lifegiving. The market vendors promised food, drinks and the opportunity to dance. Something Rey had always died to try in earnest (no, the one with Luke didn’t count and dancing because you didn’t die in the Resistance seemed absurd to her).

 

Ben had refused to attend. Not really a surprise.

 

He had made his case. The risk of exposure. Don’t get attached to them. What if we have to leave?…and underneath all of that - what if you want to leave?

 

Sometimes she did want to leave.

 

Sometimes she did want to escape the cottage. Escape being a prisoner of her own design. Escape from this planet. Go back to Finn, Poe, Leia, and Rose. Sometimes she wanted to escape her own feelings. 

 

She felt as trapped and stuck as when she lived on Jakku.

 

Sometimes she wanted to escape him.

 

Because whatever lay between them had been the most liberating and awe-inspiring thing that had happened to her, and the closest thing she ever had ever come to her own downfall. It was exhausting.

 

It was exhausting that all she wanted to do was to grab him by the neck and kiss him – it was exhausting to keep convincing herself not to. Because…why shouldn’t she do it? And that’s when the shame would hit, the gut-clenching feeling of letting down the ones whom she loved and that he had hurt. So, so much.

 

Things were simpler when she lived in a dog eat dog world. Now she didn’t. Now there were other people than her, people that mattered to her – people whom she’d hurt if she gave in. Problems that ought to be solved through talking, not fighting. Problems that required her to expose herself and give her compassion unconditionally. Rey knew very little about how to do that.

 

Ben seemed equally clueless. Because all he had done since she had announced it, was wander the planes and the cottage with a sulking and thoughtful expression. He answered her in clipped sentences and for the first time in a while, had gotten so angry at a machine not working that he threw it on the ground.

 

2 steps forward, 14 back.

 

Rey wished she was older. Rey wished that she had experience with all of these things and not feel like a blind man fumbling in the dark, trying to build a house.

 

She wanted – needed - to get out of the cottage. For just one night. Have fun. Meet new faces. She liked the local people and they had received her kindly. Although Ben’s words resonated with her, a small part of herself yearned to make this something closer to a home than the overstuffed prison it currently was.

 

And they lived in a cottage with 6 rooms and miles of golden meadow around them.

 

Ben didn’t see the point in integration. He couldn’t see her attempts at mending their relationship.

 

 _Fine_.

 

"I'll go on my own then."

 

She didn’t.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still no betas, because I don't feel like it. Hit me with edits if you'll be so kind.


	3. Wayfarer I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Wayfarer in the night she is.
> 
> Showing the way to something none of them asked, none of them considered, that none of them are thinking about right now. Consequences are not a priority at the moment.

WAYFARER I

36 AB

The smoke is heavy in the air. 

Rey draws a steadying breath, tightening her hold on the mended lightsaber in her hand. Trepidation and anxiety threatening to consume her, but she can’t let them, not now. 

There are thoughts she can have and then there are thoughts she cannot have. It’s a fight, she is allowed to be conscious of danger, she is allowed to be conscious of death, she is allowed to be conscious about killing. What she is not allowed to have, is doubt about facing Kylo Ren in the throne room.

This is what everything has to lead to. This is her destiny. To rid the world of Kylo Ren. Ben Solo. The only man she has ever lo-

She whips her head to the side. This is not a thought she is allowed to have.

Because it is a silly thought.

It is a stupid thought.

Because all of the daydreams that follow are fake, impossible, it doesn’t change anything about why she is here, why she has to kill him. 

The First Order Hangar is close to deserted. Except for a few causalities from when Resistance made their first landing. They had expected heavy armored troopers, autocannons. They had expected the need to fly recklessly, the need to be smart, but all they were met with was an eerie silence. 

A few TIE fighters were still locked firmly in place, but all in all, it looked as if the First Order’s main base had been evacuated. Quickly. 

Rey would have been worried that Kylo Ren had escaped too, but she feels him in the force. A dimmer in the distance and something about that worries her. Usually, he is a potent and violent presence, a churning authority in the force that pounds at its surroundings. A presence that begs for help. A presence so not unlike herself. 

However, right now, as she circles her way through the mazes in the First Order building, his presence is calm but flickering. There is an undercurrent of acceptance and the storming sea his emotions usually are, are now still as a mountain lake. 

It doesn’t matter.

Rey stops in her tracks and steadies her grip on the saber in her hand. Trying to recall her training, the books and remove her feelings, numb them to a mere afterthought.

She needs to kill Kylo Ren. She will have to fight him.

Whatever she feels, doesn’t diminish that fact that his life has brought on so much death. It doesn’t diminish the fact that his survival could result in more. She needs to do it for all of the friends she has lost to him. For all of the people who have suffered.

Her hand grasp at the cold black steel frame of a hydraulic door. Rey’s breath is shallow and she struggles to gain control of it. To drown all of her heart’s attempt at making –

She brings herself to full height and draws in a deep gulp of air and steadies on.

Something tingles in the back of her mind that they are missing something important. The lack of stormtroopers and other First Order personnel. 

As if on cue a man half dressed in a stormtrooper outfit runs towards her frantically, gun raised and firing. She easily deflect its and swings her staff behind her back in an upward strike, her other arm shoots forward, pulling at the force, stopping him in his tracks.

She imagines his face contorted in anger, in surprise, in trepidation. This is the Jedi. The Jedi. She has come to end this. End me.

Rey swallows and lowers her head slowly, taking in his disheveled outfit, his fast heart rate, his fear.

“What happened?”

It’s funny how some things surprise you more than others. In all honesty, Rey’s life had the last three years been nothing but one big surprise. Leaving on the falcon had spiraled her into an uprooting of her life and worldview that even now Rey wasn’t really sure where she stood on anything. In fact, she had gotten so used to things being twisted and turned that she hardly ever felt on shaking ground.

“The Supreme Leader has released all staff from the First Order…and killed General Hux.”

She blinked.

“He.what.”

The stormtrooper is sweating heavily.

“He…He said that the order is no more.” – he struggles in her grip and she tightens her hold on the force. “They…they…we are all free. Whatever that means…”  
Rey might never really be surprised.

But she finds herself surprised right now.

Because there are just a few things in life that sweeps you of your feet in surprise. The words of the stormtrooper make her gasp for breath and her focus in the force wavers. She finds her heart fluttering. Hope. Love. Compassion. The force dance around her, pulling her towards the man it so wants her to be with.

And she refuses.

Rey refuses. 

For the first time refuses the force.

Because where it wants her to go, there will be heartbreak, there will be hurt. There are things between them that cannot be erased.

She closes her eyes and hears Poe’s ragged breath as they descend onto the First Order. Finn holding his hand, pushing a hand to Poe’s bleeding side. There are people Ben has hurt. People she loves.

She refuses the force because there are things that are bigger than the force. Things the force doesn’t understand. Human hearts that it will break.

The trepidation she had felt before entering the hangar disappears. The force lashes back at her, but Rey knows about pain, knows how to withstand it. It feels symbolic that she refuses the force’s last gesture, just as she refused its first in the bottom of Maz Kanata’s cellar. 

Rey closes her eyes and focuses, enters the stormtroopers mind – something she had promised never to do to anyone. She is not like him. Except she is and she refuses that notion. The memories flow rapidly. She is not as skilled in this as Kylo. She sees the stormtroopers childhood, the pain, the suffering, the camaraderie, the love, the hurt, and the betrayal from his supreme leader – because…what is he without the First Order. 

So he is telling the truth.

She whips her hand back, forcing him into a deep sleep. 

The moment pass. The air condition blows out cold streams of air in pulsing motions. Rey’s breath slowly calms as she processes what she has seen.

It changes nothing.

She refuses her calling.  
Her family deserves it.

Tightening her hand on her saber, she feels for him the force – feeling a bit like cheating – and once more descends down the halls of the First Order.

-

He’s lying in a pool of blood.

He’s hurt.

Kylo’s hurt.

Someone hurt him.

“BEN!?”

His flickering presence in the force awakens at her calling his true name. He raises his head slightly from the ground. He looks at her. There’s something unsettling in his eyes. Rey doesn’t like it. 

Her feet take flight before her brain catches up. All her resolve and refusal of the force dissolves at the sight of him lying flat on his back, his hand clutching his side. Blood pooling on the dark obsidian floor of the throne room. His breath racked and short. 

The force really has a sick sense of humor.

Her knees skid on the floor as she throws herself down beside him. It hurts and burns, but she doesn’t care.

Rey gasps his name over and over again. 

“Who did this!?” She cries. 

Her hands hover over his wound. She knows how to mend it. She has read it. She read it in the Jedi texts. She saw it in Ben’s mind. She knows it.

She can’t.

Her fists tremble. Her mouth has gone dry. Her perseverance about ending all of this falls horribly short as she watches this striking man lie completely still in front of her. His eyes combing hers and Rey finds something atrocious in the force.

He hoped she would be too late.

He hoped he would die before she came.

An anger burning hot as a star ascents in her chest at the recognition that he wanted to leave her. Anger at the force. The Resistance. The First Order. Whoever stabbed him. 

Rey is so angry with Ben!

“WHO DID THIS!?”

Ben jumps.

It tears at his wound and he winches. Eyes clench shut and he bites his lips.

“Hux”

Of course it was.

He flickers in the force and Rey is petrified. Truly petrified.

Suddenly she is unsure as to whether the pull to Ben truly was a thing facilitated by the force…or was it …herself? She had denied the force before she and she still does, but her heart aches for Ben despite all of this. Her heart is breaking and Rey can’t. Just can’t.

“I killed him,” Ben whispers quietly.

“good” 

He flickers again and she sees him struggling to stay awake. There’s a shift in the air around them. Something unsaid manifests. Something only made of dreams become real. Something someone wishes were a reality.

Ben’s hand, not grasping his side, reaches up, tugs at Rey’s neck and brings her face roughly to his. 

He kisses her.

The air resounds of a dream and a vision unfulfilled. Of something to part the world with instead. A compromise. 

It is clumsy. it tastes metallic. It’s not a good kiss.

It reminds Rey of all she could have.

Of all the things she will have to live with if she let things run their course now.

Ben senses none of her sadness in the force, although she feels his emotions clearly. His awe. His dying wish coming true. His resolution about her, and in a fleeting moment, he feels happy.

He pulls back slowly, brown cognac eyes searching hers. 

“Ben I can’t.”

He’s hurt and she doesn’t need the force to tell her. Ben is always so expressive. His brows furrowed and eyes narrowed. 

“Rey…”

She pulls at the blue translucent cloths around her waist, tearing it roughly from her belt and forcefully removes the hand Ben clasps at his wound. There’s so much blood.

She presses the cloth hard against his side and begins to tie it around his waist, forcing his back to arch through the force. If he wasn’t confused before, he is now. His hand grasping at her wrist in a question. 

She tightens the knot with her teeth, blood drenching the cloth leaves traces at her mouth.

“Stand,” Rey commands. 

He does, albeit wobbly. The usually questioning nephew of Luke Skywalker, a self-proclaimed teacher, asks no questions and when she takes his hand tightly, he lets her lead him.

A Wayfarer in the night she is.

Showing the way to something none of them asked, none of them considered, that none of them are thinking about right now. Consequences are not a priority at the moment.

Ben, you can’t die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Beta, No edit, No grammar check - the usual 'hit me up'


	4. Renounce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey is happy.
> 
> So so happy.
> 
> “you are getting old”

Renounce

37 AD

The first time they had sex was in Ben’s slightly bigger bed in the upstairs bedroom. Not unlike many first times, it had been a clumsy affair, fumbling hands, nervous breaths and very little pleasure. 

It had changed everything.

Rey knew that when they had kissed in the kitchen after the disastrous village festival that they would be speeding across any other bridge from now on. Why ought there be any more hesitation, when everything was out in the open? Rey wanted Ben. Ben wanted Rey and when he kisses her, her body explodes into a well of butterflies. Why wait?

Like with anything between them, they wouldn’t settled with nothing. As soon as they had shared that truly wonderful kiss in the dark of night, illuminated only by the standby lamps on the kitchen displays, Rey knew they could only go forward. They could only run forward. There were too many things they both wanted.

They had spent the remainder of the night in her small bed (because it was the closest to the kitchen), kissing each other senseless. Nothing unventured. There had been too many months, years even, where these undisclosed desired that been curbed. 

He kissed her so well. So fervently. So kindly. So like she was everything.

Ben was everything to her in that moment. 

It had been an experience that made her aware of her body in an entirely new sense. Like a rebirth brought on by this man’s intense affection for her.

She loved him. She loves him. She knew it. Right then and there. Like no one else in the entire galaxy.

Rey knew she couldn’t have left him there, bleeding, but now she was happy she didn’t.

However, as you all know, despite your best intentions, there are only so many hours you can kiss someone before your lips become tender before you become exhausted before your brain shuts down and all you can do is be swallowed up by feelings of contentment.

At something that looked like the crack of dawn they fell asleep, her resting her head on his chest, his arms circled around her waist. 

Although Rey had mostly horrible memories form Jakku, lying in Ben’s arms felt as being back in the safe hollow of her walker. It reminded her of how it protected her against the violent sandstorms of R’iia.

It felt like home.

And so did the days following – or it had all been a sort of a blur. He had kissed her senseless once more while cooking, placing her on the kitchen top, his body between her legs, her arms in his hair. They had been a tangled mess. The food had burned. 

“I guess you know how to cook as well as I do” she had joked. Ben had force pushed the pot away and just kept kissing her. Rey had but all given in, but not without noticing the little flicker of his mouth, signaling the beginning of a smile.

She had attacked him in the vegetable patch, finding it hard to ignore how his hand would carelessly trail hers, as they dug through the soil.

At night they had managed to settle into his bed instead, although in retrospect Rey found it hard to recall how. Each night a new bridge would be crossed. Their bodies bathed in love bites and kisses. Their breaths short and shallow. Hardly any words had been spoken between them, nothing except what could be said with their hands, their mouths and their eyes. 

Ben was a very attentive lover. While sometimes a teacher, she found him to be a curious ambitious student in these moments, who carefully examined and learned her. He would try anything, everything until he found what would make her gasp. By the end of the third day, Rey was nothing but a delirium. What had been awkward and inexperienced he made up for in a will to improve and perfect and she made up for by simply bulldozing her way through. 

However, it was the night when she gathered her courage to take off her tunic and breast band that she would come to learn why some people would start a war over something as silly as sex. 

So far this new adventure had consisted of passionate decorative kisses but mostly sustained from the neck and up. While their mutual desire pulsed in the force and begged them to go further, there was a matter of inexperience, trepidation and ‘how do you that?’ that naturally sobered the situation.

However, as with them, trepidation is usually overshadowed by their desire to just be with each other.

Rey remembers his look fondly even today, as he sees her breasts for the first time. A look so not unlike the one he gave her, as she tore the lightsaber from him in the snowy forest on Starkiller. A look of awe and utter devotion. His hand had splayed across her sternum, nervousness, excitement, and inadequacy flooding the air. Her feelings of inadequacy. His feelings of determination. 

What had happened afterwards had been a game changer – not like any of this in its entirety hadn’t been a game changer – but as his hands slid down her body, their foreheads pressed together, their warm breaths mingling, Rey found herself become undone, pulled apart, like a star exploding into a supernova, only to carefully be put back together again by Ben’s loving kisses. 

They had crossed the second bridge quickly after that. It had been a more painful experience, strenuous and unsure. However, as with learning anything new, they both were aware, it is difficult and painful in the beginning, but with practice, everything improves.

Even with it hurting, it had been such a vulnerable thing for them to do, to admit, to succumb to, that Rey had started crying and Ben had held her so tight she was convinced he would kill her. Ben’s resolve for emotional detachment, the Jedi’s teachings of celibacy and abstinence that had been so hard to shed, broke as he gave into Rey. Rey’s fear of abandonment of being close to anyone enough for them to hurt her, surfaced truly in that moment only to find him there – right there- for her. 

It had not been a pleasurable experience. Not like how people would describe it. 

It had been cathartic instead. It had been them accepting each other. For the first time ever since Rey and Ben had run away they had chosen each other for good. In these moments of intimacy, there were no doubts, no hesitation.

In holobooks it is the declaration of love, of proposals, of sacrifice that truly signaled that someone meant it.

Rey and Ben realized that saying words (which neither were really that good at) compared little to the unsaid things. To the way, he would trail his hand down her naked arm, the way she would kiss his temple, the scar. Words seemed to inadequate in those moments. It would merely be confirmation of something they both already knew.

They loved each other. 

However, Ben wouldn’t accept just that and as they slowly came to, he settled into his studies and started the spiral of learning once more. 

-

The next day he took her to the village doctor who put in a birth control implant. The doctor smiling had been kind enough to tell her about what to expect. 

She had expected Ben to be shy, to be awkward, but instead he asked questions, he asked the doctor to explain cycles and contraceptives, he wanted to know everything. 

Rey remembers being slightly mad at him for making her feel uneducated, for making her feel like she knew her body less than he did. She promptly told him so, when they came back to the cottage.

However, she also felt grateful. 

She hadn’t considered her fertility. She hadn’t considered kids and she knew that Ben hadn’t either. It was only in the brink of the morning as they slowly woke to the sun shining into his bedroom, that she sensed realization from him in the force. 

Kriff.

-  
41 AD

Hanna slept soundly on Rey’s chest as they lay in their bedroom on a lazy summer afternoon. Ben had settled beside them, a holobook in hand and a look of concentration. While Rey had been the mechanic in this tiny family, with tiny baby Hanna needing her to be around a bit more, especially to breastfeed, Ben had taken on the task himself to fix various household appliances.

She had told him he didn’t need to. He had swiftly brushed her off and she knew it was his way of showing he cared.

Not that he didn’t care, rather the opposite.

Ever since Rey had given birth three months ago, Ben had shown her a side of himself she hadn’t ever seen before.

While he was attentive, tender and compassionate towards Rey, the welcoming of their child had made him insanely productive and concerned by minuscule things. 

“What if she trips here?”

“What if she chokes?”

“What if-“

He was a very loving father and she found him often sleeping next to Hanna’s crip.

Hanna snored softly into Rey’s chest and something loving blossomed at the spot where Rey could feel their beautiful little creature breathing. Rey’s gaze though was fixed on Ben, admiring his brown eyes and the way his black curly hair would float around his face because those were the eyes and hair their daughter had.

The force had been calm for years, but since the arrival of Hanna it had been ecstatic, electric. Was it pushing for this union of the two all along?

Warmth spread through her body as she begins to smile brightly.

Rey is happy.

So so happy.

“you are getting old”

Ben turned his head towards her, eyebrows raised in a question. 

Rey brings her free hand to his hair and plugs a single grey hair from his locks. She shows it to him. “See”

He looks at it carefully, considering it, before closing the holo and placing it on the window ledge above them.

“I see” his deep voice rumbles and it does the same thing to her as it always does. Her heart flutters. 

Ben smirks. He does that. She hates it and loves it. 

He buries his head into the crook of her neck and she shrieks silently. He mumbles against her skin as he presses soft kisses against her pulse. “Are you into old men sweetheart?”.

“Don’t-” she squeaks slightly “- you’ll wake her”.

Rey is happy.

So so happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written in the span of 2 hours, so I haven't checked it for anything. It was kind of a spur of the moment. 
> 
> Because I have places to go and stuff to do!


	5. Wayfarer II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “take it”
> 
> Rey finds removing her hands from his one of the hardest tests she has ever done. A lump in her throat won’t go away as she points to the beacon tied around her wrist.
> 
> He regards the beacon carefully in his hand, before slowly looking her in the eye. “Rey. What are you –“
> 
> “When the time is right” She hears herself saying. “Come find me.”

WAYFARER II

36 AB

The First Order shuttle isn’t far away from the throne room and that’s where she is dragging a semi-conscious, dazed and miserable Ben Solo.

Yes. He is Ben Solo now.

The First Order is disseminated. They are no more.

Which means the supreme leader is no more.

Which means Kylo Ren is no more.

That only leaves Ben Solo.

\- and he’s not looking good at the moment.

His eyes are downcast on the shining obsidian floor, mirroring back his expression and despite the feelings, she senses in the Force, she can only guess what is going on in his head.

Rey tightens her grip on his hand, intertwining their blood covered fingers in the hopes that her clear presence encourages him to just walk a few more steps to the shuttle ramp.

It is perhaps preposterous to assume that he is Ben Solo now. Does he even want to be Ben Solo?

Just because Rey wants him to be, just because all his other identifies have been ripped from him, doesn’t mean he wants to be the son of Leia and Han. Rey reflects as she punches the datapad next to the shuttles entrance. Something sour settles in her stomach, but she refuses to acknowledge it, knowing if she starts doubting now, she won’t be able to go through with saving him.

His breath is ragged. He must have lost so much blood.

As the door swoosh open, Rey promptly drags him to the nearest bench and starts rummaging through the cupboards and closets for bacta bandaids and other medical supplies. She will have to stitch him up.

From the corner of her eye, she sees him rests his head against the back of the integrated couch as if just wanting to let the world swallow him whole. Rey hears him silently mumble something under his breath, but it is too low for her ears to pick up exactly what.

It was probably nothing.

Depositing the various instruments and supplies she needs on the sterile black metal table, she begins removing his clothes, while holding her now ruined blue cloth tight against his wound. Rey feels his dazed eyes on her.

There is something in the air between them, a question, something unsaid

She knows from the Jedi texts and from what she managed to get from Ben’s memories how to use the Force to heal. However, as she has also learned, this was not anything Ben ever excelled at and the Jedi texts are vague and ambiguous. Rey tries her best to utilize the Force so that she stops the blood from exiting the wound. Taking a piece of thread between her teeth, while grabbing his hand and placing it on the bloodsoaked cloth, she dips the needle and thread in alcohol and punches the thread through the head of the needle.

It is a foreign luxury to be able to maintain some health code considering the circumstances. On Jakku Rey had been forced to stitch herself up on multiple occasions and it is a wonder she never caught anything majorly deadly.

Using all her focus, she directs the flow of blood away from the wound, carefully peeling Ben’s hand away. Its deep, much too deep, but this will have to do for now. She digs the needle into his skin and starts to thread the wound in a swift and efficient manner. Ben is looking at her still, his blood-drenched hand tracing her arm, leaving behind marks of his own mortality for all to see.

While the wound was deep, it is luckily for her small, so it takes less time to sow and it will be less strenuous for him to walk or move.

Plucking a few bacta band-aids, she throws them on his wound and only then hears him hiss at the pain. There is a blood regenerative pill in the med medpac and a bottle of water in her own backpack. She takes the small blue pill between her fingers and her other hand to force open his mouth, in case he had lost too much blood to function. Her fingers grasp his cheeks and his mouth willingly falls open while she deposits the pill on his tongue. He knows what she is trying to do.

Rey brings the flask to his lips and Ben takes big hearty gulps, swallowing the pill, never breaking eye contact with her. What’s the point?

The Force reeks of his confusion, self-loathing and concern. She removes the flask and notices the droplets of water trailing from his mouth down his chin. Rey finds herself watching them trace patterns down his skin and splash onto his now bare chest.

It is an intimate display, but Rey finds herself not occupied by the same yearning and trivial thoughts from when she would lie alone in her bunk. Instead, a deep sadness finds her. A melancholy so strong it sinks into her bones. A realization about what she is about to do. A realization about what she is about to lose. A realization that he almost died.

A realization that she is forcing him into something he might not even consent to.  
Too bad.

It will be easier to live knowing her friends are happy somewhere than to live knowing that Ben never got to be happy. Because there are things and feelings between them that makes her exhale softly in the night and which wrenches at her heart so hard that she struggles to breathe.

Ben is going to be happy with her. That’s what the Force told her so long ago.

Ben hasn’t said that to her. She just knows it.

There's no time to doubt.

Rey doesn’t doubt right now.

Ben doesn’t either…

…actually all she feels from Ben right now is his desire to make most of the time he has left with her. Make the most of the time before he -

Her eyes flicker back to his, brown on brown, confused. She searches his expression. What does he mean?.

Something passes between them in the Force. A feeling. A doubt. A certainty. She isn’t trying to save you. She is taking you to the resistance. She is just postponing the inevitable. She deserves more…

Rey narrows her eyes at him – he thinks she is doing wha-

“REY!?”

They both jump in surprise at the sound of a male voice from outside the shuttle.

Rey finds herself at once fearful and scared -

“REY, ARE YOU HERE!?” It’s Finn.

\- and suddenly overcome with the realization that if she goes through with this vague and not fully formed ideas of hers, she will never see Finn again. Never.

Never.

He will never know what she feels for him. How grateful she is for all he has done for her.

How much she loves him.  
There is such a heavy ache in her heart, a painful contraction, that she doesn’t notice Ben’s panicking eyes searching her face.

Ben is tense, as she rises from the couch and speeds towards the exit.

Finn is walking frantically between the shuttles on the other end of the hangar, yelling her name at the top of her lungs.

“FINN!”

He stops in his tracks, whipping his face towards the sound of her voice. He looks so relieved.

Rey’s heart is breaking.

It is not until much later, when Finn arrives on their backwater planet that she recalls how similar their last and first meeting goes. How she runs towards him. How his smile never falters. How they embrace roughly.

“We went to the throne room. You weren’t there and just a whole lot of blood and then - Rey what happened?”

She can’t. She can’t leave him.

 _She must_ the Force pulls.

Rey steps out of his embrace, still holding him by his arms. “Finn” she draws a breath. “Finn I have to go.”

His face never hides the visible confusion. “wait, Re-“

An idea hits her. _It will be a mistake_ the Force whispers back. Her hands start rummaging through her backpack until she finds the two cloaked binary beacons. She quickly throws one on her wrist and carefully brings Finn’s hands forward, placing the other gently in his palms.

“take it”

Rey finds removing her hands from his one of the hardest tests she has ever done. A lump in her throat won’t go away as she points to the beacon tied around her wrist.

He regards at the beacon carefully in his hand, before slowly looking her in the eye. “Rey. What are you –“

“When the time is right” She hears herself saying. “Come find me.”

 _You will regret this_ , the Force reminds her.  
Rey turns and runs, finding herself unable to stay and explain. Stay and hear his judgment.

However, as she ascends the shuttle she finds herself drawn to Finn once more and the last thing she sees is the hurt, the confusion, the questions.

Somehow this all reminds her of the time she closed the door on Kylo. How she gazed at him with such disappointment. Finn must see her hurt too.

It is not until much later that Rey slowly starts to hate Ben for forcing her on this path. It is not until much later that Rey starts to resent Finn for finding her on Jakku. It is not until much later that Rey wishes she had just left BB8 to the teedo.

She also regrets all these thoughts. But thoughts are thoughts and regrets are regrets.

Finn starts to move towards her and Rey finds herself closing the shuttle door quickly and all but runs to the pilot seat, initiating the startup sequence. Never once looking at the dazed Ben Solo on the couch watching her.

-

“You should cuff me before we land” Rey finds him asking a few hours later, as she observes the hyperspace tunnel travel past them in a glorious blue dancing light. Ben sound less – groggy – more awake, but there’s still an edge to his voice. A hidden pain. A question.

She turns her head – oh, so that’s what he meant when she felt him in the Force earlier.

He thinks she is taking him to the resistance.

He thought she was foolish because she wanted him trialed.

He thought she said she couldn’t, because she was conflicted by duty.

She finds herself disappointed in him, that he would think so low of her motivations. That he would think so low about himself that he couldn’t phantom her -

“no” she turns her head back to console.

His hand grasps at the seat, his Force signature still in rambles as he says "Why go to such lengths if all they will do is shoot me on sig-"

“I am not taking you to the resistance.”

Ben’s Force signature spikes, there’s confusion, questions and…anger. “where. Are you taking me.”

“I don’t know” because she doesn’t.  
“What do you mean you don’t know.” You can almost kill the supreme leader, but you can never kill the supreme leader in him.

Rey swallows silently rises from the chair and turns to face him. "I don't know."

“you don’t know If you don’t know or don’t know where you are taking me?" He knows what she means. He is only trying to rile her up.

Rey takes the bait because she's tired – physically and emotionally and she just.can’t.deal.with.this.right.now - and slowly hisses under her breath. “For someone who just avoided dying you are awfully snarky about all of this.”

There’s this thing that people in romance novels always get wrong. That once you fall in love, once you heart flutters, then you are unable to fight, you are unable to get upset and angry. Rey is in love with Ben. Ben is in love with Rey. However, Ben is pissing off Rey and Rey is pissing off Ben right now.

Because she is being vague and nebulous and he is being ungrateful and inconsiderate.

So they start yelling.

They start saying things that hurt.

And Rey is tearing up.

And while he loves Rey, he is so angry with her.

"what gives you the right." It is not a question. It is an accusation. It hurts. Because it tells her, that her compassion isn't enough – compassion isn't enough to forgive that she ripped away his agency.

She chokes on an angry sob. “Did…did you want to die?”

Ben goes quite.

She gulps a hearty piece of air into her lungs, realization blooming in her and she suddenly feels so sad. So regretful. The answer she thought was easy.

Did he even want her too?

Would he have let her die if she was in her place?

She sees his Adam’s apple bob and before she has the time to make amends, he turns and leaves her. Although the Force is thick with his regret, his anger and self-loathing, he refuses to acknowledge her actions in saving him.  
Refuses her feelings.

Refuses to talk about it.

Refuses her.

-

They don’t talk for an entire day and when they do, it is quick and curt.

-

He lets her tend his wound the following day.

-

Rey misses Finn.


	6. Singularity I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the fluffy sexy angst

40 AB

Singularity I

 

-

Rey is pregnant.

 

She is pregnant.

 

A hand traces her flat stomach, as the doctor keeps retracing the information he just provided. She feels nothing. Nothing.

 

11 weeks.

 

There's a ringing sound in her ear that tells her she shouldn't be pregnant. While the last four years with Ben had been blissful and serene, wonderful and awesome, a period where she had grown up and grown as a person, she had always been so sure that they should not bring a child into this.

 

Ben had been equally assured of that.

 

While things had been quiet, they both knew the risk, they both knew the danger, they both knew they one day would have to move or was discovered. A child would complicate things.

 

It would be a complicated life.

 

A child didn't deserve to live a life on the run. Didn't deserve to be a child of two legacies like Ben. It didn't deserve to be a child who could end up losing both its parents like Rey. Be left alone to fend for itself.

 

Yes. While Rey and Ben loved each other, and if Rey and Ben had been in any different circumstance they would have fathered children - they just… Couldn't.

 

Would she even be a good mother?

 

Sometimes she was impatient.

 

Sometimes she was angry and hurtful.

 

Sometimes she lashes out.

 

Sometimes she makes Ben upset, and he becomes angry with her and she becomes sad and they fight and he throws something and she yells and walks out and she cannot do that to her child.

 

But the doctor said she was pregnant.

 

Ben is so pale next to her.

 

The doctor, a local from the village doesn't seem to notice their distant expressions and instead persists on congratulating them. Shakes Ben's hand and Ben gives him a perplexed look. Then the doctor shifts and places a hand on Rey’s shoulder and gives it a comforting squeeze, the doctor's eyes beaming with pride.

 

Rey wants to cry.

 

He keeps telling her things, details. Rey is sure she should listen because Ben is not. He is lost to somewhere. However, she can't get that ringing sound out of her head. She can't hear him. She needs to know what he's saying.

 

“what… “ she hears Ben’s voice as a distant memory.” what if…it is not…” he shallows ”... convenient? ”

 

Rey would have expected the doctor to be surprised. Horrified. Judgemental. But no… all that ever crosses his lips is a sad understanding smile as he starts to explain.

 

Rey hears little.

 

Her hands are right on her stomach.

 

-

 

He makes her caf when they get home. The air is tense. No one seems unable to breach the topic and instead, they sip quietly from their cups. Emotions are twirling and mixing around them in the Force.

 

How did it happen?

 

Well. They know what happened, but she was supposed to be protected?

 

The doctor had mentioned expiry dates if she had fallen and broken the rod in her arm.

 

Rey’s eyes are red and dry. She cried at the doctor and on the way home and she feels so bad.

 

-

 

They don’t talk about it the day after or the one following that either.

 

-

 

“Hey” Ben says quietly from the door. A towel draped over his shoulders, hair wet and lank from the shower. “How are you feeling?”

 

Rey sits up in the bed, putting down the Jedi text on celibacy - a fitting topic. “Tired, but good.”

 

She feels him consider things, jaw working, hands twisting at the door frame.

 

“Can you feel anything?”

 

Rey shakes her head. No, she had only been tired. Which had been the reason they had gone to the doctor in the first place when Ben’s attempts at force healing had backfired. She pats the bed. “Sit”

 

He sits and they’re supposed to talk, but they don’t. He kisses her shoulder. She kisses him on the mouth and they talk about nothing. As they lie down and just rests for a while, she notices him eyeing her stomach continuously. Something warm blossoms in the force.

 

Ben moves down from her shoulder and places a hand on her stomach.

 

“well. I can't wait to meet her”

 

Rey blinks.

 

“ _Her_? How do know it's a girl? I don't even feel anything in the force.”

 

“I don't know”

 

He goes still for a moment. She stares transfixed on the locks of dark curly hair that pools on her stomach. His brown eyes circling the expanse of her paling skin, a kind reminder that they descend into the winter months.

 

“Maybe … I just _want_ it to be a girl?” his eyes flick to hers. Dark and deep.

 

Rey hopes her daughter will have his eyes.

 

His hair.

 

His heart.

 

His patience and curiosity.

 

His warmth.

 

She wants her daughter to have his ears. She wants them to peak out from under her dark black curls.

 

“why?”

 

Rey would want nothing more than her daughter to be just like her father - to sit at the table, trying to solve a problem, and have that same intense determined stare on the Holo in front of her.

 

She wants Ben's kindness and gentleness. Especially since Rey is far from gentle and patient. There is no doubt that their daughter will have plenty of fury, and anger and determination if she takes after just one parent.

 

Rey wants to wake up in the morning with her between them, snoring away softly in her father's arms.

 

Rey doesn’t know if it is a girl, but there’s something in what he is saying that makes her think she could want a daughter - she could want a son too.

 

Ben shrugs “I don't know. Maybe… “ he pauses “I just have the impression that all Skywalker men fare… badly. My… Mother… And what I know of my real and adopted grandmother were so extraordinary. “

 

His finger strokes the soft brown skin and Ben places a kiss right below her navel. Dark eyes flutter shut. “just like you” he whispers softly.

 

Rey does a half chuckle, half snort “that doesn't count. I'm not a Skywalker”

 

He regards her for a moment, she strokes his hair lazily, twirling it between her fingers.

 

And that was all they ever did manage to discuss it.

 

It was all Rey ever needed to be convinced that damn the complications, Ben deserved a child, she did, they wanted to be a family. They deserved a family.

 

The Force hummed so heavily in their tiny bedroom that it felt like getting drunk. Rey’s heart was so full.

 

Ben had raised himself from her would be growing stomach and settled for kissing her lazily and gently. Shifting between quick pecks and deep heavy kisses, pushing her further down the pillow. All while she whispers kind loving words in his ears.

 

“you'll be a good father”

 

“I love you”

 

“you're a great man”

 

“you’re all I've ever wanted”

 

“you make me so happy”

 

Rey sighs in anticipation as Ben's hands slowly traveled to the edge of her pants, played with the hem, tickling in the bests way, before pushing one hand to her center.

 

-

 

At night Ben tells her stories from his childhood. He tells her stories of his favorite toys, of his favorite places, of Chandrila.

 

“It sounds like a lovely place”

 

“it is.”

 

-

 

They moved the bed from the upstairs bedroom to the one on the plateau at the entrance.

 

His daughter should have the view he remarked.

 

-

 

Sometimes Rey felt so ignorant, so unprepared for what was about to happen. She had seen children at the resistance base, but children were seldom on Jakku.

 

-

 

Rey cried that day Ben felt their daughter for the first time in the Force. It was subtle, so small, a tiny difference.

 

Rey couldn’t feel it and she sobbed as Ben attempted to convince her she wouldn’t be a bad mother. How could she not be? _She couldn’t even feel her own child in the force!_

 

-

 

Rey felt her so clearly a few days after. A flutter, a spark. A bright light. She cried from happiness.

 

-

 

There’s a small stuffed toy sitting ready on the dresser in the bedroom. Ben names it after his own favorite toy he had on Chandrila.

 

The Force is in ecstasy.

 

-

 

“I think we should get married,” he says one morning as he pushes into her. She almost misses it from being so into it right now, her legs trembling at the delicious sensation of being full and th-

 

“a… are.. You want to talk about this now?!” She wants it to come out as a surprising and stern reprimand, but all she manages is to whisper a soft whine.

 

He bucks into her and moves hard against her, her stomach still small enough for them to do this front to front, but it will only be a matter of weeks. He struggles to answer, delirious and drunk off her as always, a hand grasping at her hip as he moves to position her better. Thrusting into her just right, yes right there. She curls her toes, buries a hand in his hair, and throws her head back in exhilaration.

 

He groans and grunts in effort “I… I want to give you a name “

 

She mouths an oh as her walls clench around him. Sweat pooling on her forehead as everything becomes so so good.

 

“I have a name Ben.” it comes out harsher than she intended, but she really wants this right now. She wants to disappear into these wonderful sensations and she wants to climax so hard. Ever since she has become pregnant she has been so wanting and he is so handsome and she cannot not have him and she really does not want to discuss marriage right now. It is the absolute last thing she wants to do.

 

She arches against him and pushes back and he throws his head into her shoulder. Its symphony, a duet, perfectly sung, every time.

 

Her whole being flutters and she digs her hands into his shoulders while he moves in the hard and rough and the way she just likes it. He seems to regret asking her at this moment too because it takes a long time for him to answer and he instead busies himself with suckling and kissing at her neck. He hums something and she swears she hears him murmur “Rey Solo”.

 

It's hardly something she cares about because she is so close, deliriously close and he moves his hand down her body, and oh she loves him, so so much and he does this so well and he -

 

\- pushes her right over the edge, into a glorious white light, sunny skies, violent oceans and supernovas as he strokes her and bugs into her hard and deliberate. She gasps and cries out and it is so so so good. He follows her soon after, his hips stuttering and his breath shallow and collapses on the new soft bedding they just bought.

 

It had happened like it always does and she is not sure why they keep pretending that he can get a cup of caf, enter the room to wake her with soothing kisses and not end up leaving his cup to drink her up instead.

 

Rey doesn’t mind.

 

Ben lies on his back for a few moments, catching his breath, sweat dripping from his dark hair. His skin slightly tanned from life in the outdoors.

 

There’s a peace and acceptance to him that is so hot. Domestication suits him. Living on this planet suits him. The way he’s relaxed, how a small smile always seems permanently plastered on the corner of his mouth, the way he sleeps heavily, the way he laughs and jokes and teases. Rey finds that she likes this Ben much better than the one she first came to this planet with.

 

While some may consider it a shame that domestication has brought him out of his First Order shape, he is still nothing but small. Hours spend gardening, lifting rocks, swimming in the lake and practicing with his saber may have removed his broadness, but he is still muscular, strong and he just looks so good.

 

Rey despite being 25 feels giddy and young and cant help but twirl and throw her arms around him, while peckering his jaw with quick spitfire kisses, so that his open mouth transforms into a wide shining smile. She murmurs against his skin. “what happened there? Was that a proposal?”

 

“Hmm?” he blinks down at her, before moving his gaze to the wood beams above them. They needed to be painted soon. “I guess it technically was” he moves his jaw, a trait she noticed he does when he was in deep thought, contemplating his words.

 

Rey chuckles and traces a finger down his chest, her swollen belly quiet for once. “are you afraid of her being a bastard?”

 

He snorts and looks at her appalled - “what? _No_.”

 

“Then why? It won't change anything - you'll still cook. I'll still fix the speeder.”

 

Rey had always known and experienced head first that Ben's way with words was… limited. Expressing emotions and feelings through language had been difficult, whereas he was more skilled in articulating through action. Through kisses, gestures, and attentiveness.

 

Which made the way his next words resounded in her a complete and utter surprise.

 

Ben sighs. “I… _dont interupt!_ ... I don't have a lot to give you and you have given so much to me. Ever since… “ he hesitates “.. Takodana, you forced me to...” he chews “... _reconsider_ myself.” She grins and he shoves her lightly. “Rey, listen. You gave me everything when I deserved _nothing_. You gave me this and… now her. “

 

Rey regards him, wanting to reject all he says, because he has truly changed her life too, given her all! However, she knows when to praise and when to let him lift his heavy thoughts off his chest.

 

He seems sad and traces a finger across the scar on her shoulder “... I once told you that you spend too much time looking for a family. That you looked for a family in my… father, Luke, even my mother.”

 

Rey gives him a _‘where are you going with this’_ look and he coughs awkwardly. Shifts so his head rests on her shoulder. “Rey. I regret saying that. But, if anyone deserves a family, it's you. I know the little one we are going to be one... _for real_ , but...I want you to give you a bigger family too.”

 

He turns his head towards her. Brown eyes on brown eyes. “Ben if you are offering me the galaxy again.” She’s a tease, she knows it.

 

He groans hard into her shoulder “ Kriff Rey. No. I just want to give you my name. To make you a part of that. It's all I have to offer you. ”

 

She gulps.

 

“I want you to become a part of the legacy. The past. I want you to be a Skywalker, a Solo. I want you to improve the name.”

 

She raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. Questioning him silently. He blushes slightly under her stare.

 

“its... All I have. Please let me give it to you.” It is such a strange thing that a man who ruled the galaxy can be so shy and unsure “You deserve the name. More than I do. My father would have wanted you to have his name.”

 

They are quiet for a moment. Because he never mentions Han and especially not in a praising voice.

 

It is tense and Rey finds herself growing uncomfortable, so she kisses him on the lips. Murmuring _you silly man_. He flings his arms around her and lets her ravish him with love.

 

He smiles.

 

She loves that smile.

 

“Rey Solo” she finally says. She tastes the name on her lips, finding it both heavy with guilt and life at the same time. She chuckles “better than Rey.” she winks at him “or Rey _Ren_ ”

 

He groans and tips her over, burrowing his face into her sternum, whispering “please don't be like your mother. Please. She never lets things go.”

 

“Hah! Yes, let the past die sweetheart. That's your father's mantra”


	7. Binary

Binary

 

42 AB

-

 

“Ben!”

 

Rey calls from the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboard. Her hands frantically looking for that _one_ thing.

 

“Ben!”

 

Hanna is crying frantically into her shoulder, clenching her fist on her mother’s shirt. The tears trail long tracks down her soft skin and drench the top of Rey’s shoulder. Her screams drown out every sound and Rey feels so tense, so frustrated, so where the hell is…

 

“BEN!”

 

The door from the garden swoosh open and the former Supreme Leader of the First Order looks at his wife in equal measures of confusion and trepidation. “what?”

 

Then he smiles.

 

Rey gives him an absolutely defeated expression as she frantically tries to calm their daughter in soothing rocking motions. Their kitchen is a mess. Rey looks like a mess. Her hair pulled into a disheveled bun and what is presumably leftovers from Hanna’s breakfast decorate the front of her shirt.

 

He loves her.

 

“Please. Please tell me you know where Mr. cuddles is?” This one woman could take on 5 Praetorian Guards, give him a crossbody scar, fight off Luke and yet the blunt mundane misery of their daughter made her seem on the verge of tears.

 

Ben loves this woman.

 

He takes a few steps and gently grabs the small toddler from this lovely woman's arms. His daughter's black curly hair is covered in angry sweat and he brings her close to his heart, cuddling her tight with one arm. “There there. What happened here?”

 

Rey covers her face with her hands and Ben brings his free arm around her shoulders, kissing her hair. “It’s alright. We’ll find Mr. Cuddles.” Rey leans into him because she loves him. The red cyber crystal glimmers in the fluorescent light from the kitchen.

 

Hanna’s angry cries slowly diminish into sobbing disinterest as her valiant efforts of dissatisfaction tire her.

 

Love is not always peaceful. Love is not always happiness. However, what is between them now is love. Love for each other. Love for their daughter. Love for this place they found together. Rey feels the cold metal of Ben’s wedding ring against her shoulder and it calms her to know, that she is not alone.

 

And neither is he.

 

-

 

They find Mr. Cuddles tucked neatly away under a dashboard. His spiky ears slight bent, but Hanna doesn’t care. It’s Mr. Cuddles and they have plans and places to be.

 

-

 

Ben prepares lunch in the kitchen, chopping up some of the last vegetables from the late summer batch. Rey tries to help, she has learned a lot, but he gently coos her away - telling her she is on dish duty.

 

She smiles.

 

Hanna plays lively on the floor, throwing balls and bricks at the wall, laughing at the seemingly unprofitable act.

 

“When did you start showing force powers?” Rey hops onto the kitchen counter, glancing at her daughter. Ben shoots their daughter a quick look over the shoulder and shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve always had it I guess.”

 

Hanna has Mr. Cuddles outstretched in her arms and tells him off in reprimanding gibberish. A few distinguishable words, but it’s not a conversation meant for her parents’ ears anyway.

 

Ben hums and chews on his cheeks in thought “My mother told me when I was young, even as a baby, we communicated - or more felt each other through the force. She could always tell what was wrong or I could always feel her intentions. My...father. He was envious of that bond.” He stops stirring for a moment and stares off into the distance. A memory perhaps. Rey considers him, cocking her head to the side. He continues. “So...I guess...from when I was born.”

 

The pot sizzles and he adds some salt.

 

“I…” Rey stops, pursing her lips, thinking on how to talk about this. “Should we be able to have that with Hanna too? I mean, it is you and I - I would expect her to be strong with that force too. Shouldn’t we be able to feel her more than we do?”

 

A moment of silence passes between them and Ben reaches up to open a cupboard and gives Rey three plates. “I am not sure,” he replies hesitantly. Rey takes the plates into her hands but doesn’t move to jump off their blue-colored kitchen tables. “I am not even sure when the force is supposed to show in children or how early.”

 

“Maybe” Rey starts. “maybe she’ll be lucky.”

 

“Hm?” he says, tasting the food from the pot.

 

“Maybe...she won’t be force sensitive? Maybe not as much as you and I.”

 

Ben stops and turns to face his wife and eyes wide in surprise, slightly curious and mutters “What?”

 

There’s a melancholic smile on Rey's slightly older face. “Maybe she will be allowed to be exactly who she wants to be? Maybe it's the Force's way of apologizing, by having no plans for her, no intentions. Like a ‘thank you for helping me’? ”

 

“Rey. That’s not how the Force works.” His brows furrow, but there’s an element of understanding, of gratitude, that she too would wish this for their daughter. For their daughter to be free of that burden.

 

Rey shrugs, still smiling.

 

Hanna in another fall out with Mr. Cuddles throws him across the floor.

 

-

 

They put down Hanna for a nap and make love in the bedroom.

 

Her straddling him on the edge of the bed as they move together chest to chest, kissing lips, jaws, noses, and cheeks. Breaths mingling, hands roaming and gasps of pleasure fill the space around them.

 

It’s been 6 years, but nothing has changed between them.

 

How can it?

 

Ever since Starkiller it has just been them, their worlds have attracted each other and are now they are in perpetual orbit.

 

Rey gets pissed at him often and he is angry with her stubbornness, but they always make love in the bedroom (and sometimes in the kitchen, in the fields, and in the bathroom), kiss each other good morning and good night (and many more kisses throughout the day).

 

How can anything have changed?

 

-

 

Finn looks at his wrist. The binary beacon blinking slowly, but the frequency gets faster, ever so slightly. The planet before him, yellow-green and blue slowly comes closer and closer.

 

There’s a lump in his throat. Nervousness? Excitement?

 

What if she is not there? What if she has lost the beacon and it now lies in a wasteland? What if it is a trap?

 

He tightens his hand on the controls and forces his insecurities away. He has to try.

 

-

 

Rey looks up from the speeder.

 

Something is off.

 

The Force is yelling at her.

 

Something is wrong. Something is happening. The Force begs her to look away, to ignore what is coming.

 

A trail of white crosses the blue sky, passing by the sun. Rey narrows her eyes for a better view.

 

It’s a ship.

 

Something…

 

Something…

 

She closes her eyes, pushes through the barrier the Force attempts to make and feels. Reaches out. Something familiar.

 

Someone.

 

It’s warm.

 

Her eyes jump open and she throws herself backward and stumbles to her feet. Excitement. Exhilaration.

 

Is it true!?

 

He is here!?

 

Finn!

 

Finn is here!

 

Her body explodes into butterflies and happiness and yes _, I can have this too!_

 - and she runs.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no beta-readers, because this is not any serious adventure of mine, so I didn't bother finding one. If you have corrections and more, you are more than welcome to forward them.


End file.
